How history can be helpful, illustrative for USA this summer
The USA kick off their quest to win a third Women's World Cup in a matter of days. Foremost on everyone's mind is that a win would erase 16 long years of hurt for the USA, a team that has come close but not been able to equal the glory days of the 1999 World Cup winning side. And just how much that weighs on Team USA's minds is a very open question.
"The challenge for this team is how to move from success to significance,'' said Dr. Colleen Hacker, a sports psychologist and peak performance consultant. Hacker has been widely consulted by athletes and teams, including Olympic ice hockey, Major League Baseball, the NFL and many others. But Hacker has rare insight into the U.S. women's soccer program: She worked with them for three years, from 1996 through 1999, as they won gold in Atlanta and then the Women's World Cup in front of 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl.
She saw first-hand and behind the scenes the character and dynamics at play on a team that featured Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Carla Overbeck and the rest. She witnessed the inner workings and outer manifestation of a sports team that is widely considered to be one of the best ever in history, in any sport.
"A lot of times, I like my clients a lot more before I have them as clients, but at that time, I knew it that ethically, historically, the more I saw these people and how they handled themselves and their situation, the more impressed I was with them, the more in awe I was of them,'' Hacker said.
"We would arrive in Pensacola after a 14-hour bus ride and because people were standing in the lobby, waiting for them, these people would sign autographs and talk and high-five people. ... They knew and acted as if what they were doing was larger than themselves,'' Hacker said.
Hacker is only an outside observer to today's squad led by Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo. These players are tough enough, but do they carry that singular vision to win and do they have enough of their teammates able to follow suit?
The roster for this team is deep, with many arguing that all 23 U.S. players would be starters on any other team in the world. Maybe that's true. But France, Germany, Japan and Sweden also are loaded with talent and are playing in formations and with organization that not only maximizes their talents, but also has set them free.
France, in particular, seems to be what the 1999 U.S. women were: a team that is suddenly aware of its greatness and believes it can show how far France has come on the women's soccer stage. France, more than any other team right now, carries a storyline about global soccer equality and parity among the women — a timely theme that can help expand the pool of soccer talent around the globe.
For the U.S., talent alone is not enough to guarantee anything. Nor can luck be counted on, or any sense that destiny will call the U.S. women, who want so badly to believe it is their turn.
Are they really a team of destiny? Did the lackluster play in the final U.S. friendly last week in a scoreless draw against Korea Republic reveal that nerves will play a part in the team's performance? That the U.S. women are so sold on their depth and preparedness that they will not find that true center that the greatest teams require to succeed in such rarified moments?
"One thing I learned is that you're either on the inside or you're on the outside. There's no third ground, so therefore no one except those on that team really knows what's going on,'' Hacker said.
"But it's my opinion that while it's useless to live in the past, it's equally unproductive and impossible to ignore the past. We need to know past-case history ... because past is prologue. History can be helpful and illustrative. Whether 1999 is comparative to this team ... that team does hold a lesson as far as I'm concerned because they created meaning beyond their generation, beyond their gender, beyond their sport and, frankly, beyond sport. I talk with Fortune 500 companies that earn billions of dollars in revenue and I draw lessons from that '99 team,'' Hacker said.
That's why Hacker has advice for the 2015 women's national team. It is not to compare them to the 1999 team, but to illustrate the essential reason why the 1999 team made such superlative use of its talent and drive. Hacker says the U.S. team might want to ask itself, before it plays Australia on June 8 in its Women's World Cup opener:
"How to make this larger than yourself, to move from success to significance, because there is a smallness to success (when it comes with questions like) ... How can I increase my Twitter followers? How can I get an endorsement deal? How can I get a new contract? The trick is to move beyond individual measures for success into how can we do something significant for our sport?''
There never will be another Michelle Akers or a Kristine Lilly. These players were tough, relentless. There was no second gear, there was no separation of themselves as individuals from the team. Then again, there was no Twitter and no Instagram.
The love and admiration and later the hype around the 1999 team was built on more organic and more innate forces. That was a team forged with a sense of duty for each other, for their sport, for their gender, for all of sports, for a demonstration of complete and seamless and total giving over to the moment and the goal.
The 2015 version of the U.S. women's national team does not live in that world. "That train has already left the station,'' Hacker said. "But they can ask how can we get at something larger? How can we move from success to significance?"
Soon, we shall see.
